Easter II, Year C

Welcoming Blake to the
Christian Family!

Grace Episcopal Church, Galveston
Gospel: John 20:19-31
April 28, 2019

It’s the 2nd Sunday of Easter. Typically on this Sunday a church is not as full as it was on Easter Day. There is less ceremony, fewer family members visiting, no hunting for eggs, or flowering of the cross. Perhaps, because of this comparison to Easter Day, previous generations nicknamed this day “Low Sunday.” But, today, God willing, we will witness the Baptism of a child. We will hear his parents and sponsors pledge to raise the child as a Christian, and the people of this congregation will also pledge to do their part in nurturing his Faith. Soon, we will welcome the newest member in all of Christendom. Today, promises to be anything but “Low Sunday.”

The Gospel reading gives another hint that this is more than “Low Sunday.” I had déjà vu while preparing this sermon….not just because I’ve been preaching for 32 years...but I preached on this same Gospel in this pulpit on this Sunday last year! A check of the Lectionary shows that the same reading from the Gospel According to John is appointed every year for the Second Sunday of Easter. This reading has multiple themes but the primary focus is on the nature of Faith. Believing is so central to who we are as Christians that it bears repeating year after year! It’s a big deal, and it doesn’t sound anything like a “Low Sunday” to me.

In this Gospel, we hear the story of two Resurrection appearances. The first appearance was on Sunday evening, likely the first evening meal after Jesus had risen from the dead. The disciples were afraid and for good reason. Their teacher had been been identified as a threat to Roman authority and brutally killed. Perhaps, the authorities would come after them next….it was best for them to keep a low profile. We get a hint of this in the significant detail that the door was locked. The locked door not only conveys the disciples’ fear but also the power of Jesus’ Resurrection. Despite the doors, locks, and, most of all, despite death itself, Jesus came and stood among them; he spoke a greeting of peace and conferred on them the Holy Spirit to empower them to rise above their fears and to do God’s work.

The first appearance in this Gospel serves to set up the second appearance one week later. The problem with the first instance was that one of the original twelve (other than Judas) was missing. Thomas was not present for Jesus first appearance, and when Thomas eventually heard about it, he was incredulous. Can’t we just imagine what was going through his mind? “These people have lost their minds; they have left their senses; their eyes have played tricks on them.” Thomas said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

The two stories together give the answer to a real problem of Faith experienced in the early Christian community. In the post-apostolic Church, the community after the Apostles, after those who were around for the resurrection appearances, after that big group who, according to Paul, witnessed Jesus ascend into heaven, and after the time of Paul to whom Jesus also appeared...in this post-apostolic community, how is it that people are expected to believe? How do the ones who did not benefit from seeing the Resurrected Jesus with their own eyes...how do these people come to have Faith in Jesus?

Through the Lectionary in the Book of Common Prayer, the Episcopal Church gives us the opportunity to ponder the answer to this question every time the 2nd Sunday in Easter comes around. The spotlight on Thomas’ experience is a reminder that even seeing the Resurrected Jesus is no guarantee of Faith. The disciples in that upper room all saw with their eyes, but they still had to make a “leap of faith” to accept that their teacher and friend was also their Lord and God.

The Gospel According to John tells the story of Jesus appearing to his disciples to establish a first wave of witnesses who would subsequently establish the pattern of one generation witnessing to the next. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God from those who came before us.

The story of how Thomas comes to believe yields at least three things we can say about Faith:

1. To have Faith means to trust. This is the way Faith is used almost exclusively in the scriptures, and it is what Jesus meant when he encouraged Thomas to believe. There may be times when you will hear faith used to describe a set of things to believe. In this sense, the Episcopal “faith” might include such things as the apostolic succession of bishops and the basis of religious authority being scripture, tradition, and reason...but these are just two in a list of things to which we might subscribe. When Jesus speaks to Thomas, he is not talking about things on a list...he is talking about trust, he is inviting Thomas to bet his life on God.
2. Faith is not the same as certainty. If a person is certain, he or she does not need to trust, because he or she already “knows.” Faith requires vulnerability and there is no vulnerability in certainty….there is no “leap of faith,” no mystery. Instead of certainty, Jesus invites us to be open to him, with hearts inspired by the reading of scripture, formed by participation in worship and selfless actions, and guided by careful thinking as well as thoughtful discussions with fellow Christians. Certainty distorts religion. Many forms of extremism are about choosing certainty over Faith. Certainty takes dogma and beats other people over the head with it...or worse...and you find this in religions all over the planet. The suicide bombers in Sri Lanka last week were so certain in their contempt that they were driven to commit atrocities. But, Faith as trust means having an open heart, trusting that God is with us even if we remain reverently unsure about some of the details. Trust in this way also means accepting the possibility that God has spoken to others who worship differently than us and who subscribe to different things than we do. Trust never leads to contempt. Our world surely needs less certainty and more Trust, don’t you think?
3. And finally, we do not create Faith. It is a gift that comes to us from beyond us. In John’s theology, we don’t make ourselves believe...we come to believe when the story of Jesus and the traditions of the Church are passed down to us. Because faith is a gift it is not coercive. People are free to harden their hearts to the Good News. We were created, after all, with the ability to choose. Of all things, God made us with the ability to take God’s invitation to Faith under advisement. In the end, God has shown us in Jesus that we are called to take our place in a family, to join others around a table, so to speak. Jesus even used the term “friends” to describe those who follow him. True friends are not forced or bribed to be loyal; friendship is only so when it is given freely.

So you see, today is anything but a “Low Sunday.” Our theme is the nature of Faith itself, a message our world so desperately needs to hear. And now, we move to the sacrament of Baptism where in Faith we will witness a child being connected forever to something greater than himself. And, we will, with his family and sponsors, promise to pass on the story of Jesus and the traditions of the Church, so that this little one might in time come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing he might have life in Jesus name. AMEN.